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the head of a victorious army anything beyond the limits 

 of France in 1792, gave more favourable terms to M. de 

 Talleyrand, the representative of'a nation upon which they 

 had just forced a king. He baffled the emperor Alexander, 

 who said angrily, ' Talleyrand conducts himself as if he 

 were minister of Louis XIV.' On the 5th of January, 1815, 

 he signed, with Lord Castlereagh and Prince Metternich, 

 a secret treaty, having previously obliged Prussia to remain 

 contented with a third of Saxony, and Russia to cede a 

 part of the trrand-duchy of Warsaw. The imbecility of the 

 Bourbons, by inviting the descent of Napoleon at Frejus, 

 asrain unsettled everything. M. de Talleyrand dictated 

 the proclamation of Cambray, in wmch Louis XVIII. con- 

 fessed the faults committed in 1814, and promised to make 

 reparation. He susgested the more liberal interpretation 

 of the charter, announced from the same place. He ob- 

 tained an extension of the democratic principle in the 

 constitution of the Chamber of Deputies, recommended 

 the rendering the peerage hereditary, and induced the 

 king, restored for a second time, to institute a cabinet 

 council, of which he was nominated the first president. 



The constitutional monarchy, the object of his earlier 

 wishes, was now definitively established ; but the part he 

 was destined to perform in it was that of a leader of oppo- 

 sition. In his note of the 21st of September, 1815, he pro- 

 tested, as prime minister, against the new terms which the 

 allies intended to impose upon France. He said they were 

 such conditions as only conquest could warrant. ' There 

 can only be conquest where the war has been carried on 

 against the possessor of the territory, that is, the sovereign ; 

 >ion and sovereignty being identical. But when war 

 is conducted against a usurper in behalf of the legitimate 

 possessor, there can be no conquest; there is only the re- 

 covery of territory. But the high powers have viewed the 

 enterprise of Bon?parte in the light of an act of usurpa- 

 tion, and Louis XVIII. as the real sovereign of France : 

 they have acted in support of the king's rights, and ought 

 to respect them. They contracted this engagement by 

 their declaration of the 13th and their treaty of the 25th of 

 March, to which they admitted Louis XVIII. as an ally 

 against the common enemy. If there can be no conquest 

 from a friend, much more can there be none from an ally.' 

 His argument was fruitless: Louis XVIII. bowed to the 

 dictation of his powerful allies : and M. de Talleyrand re- 

 signed office two months before the conclusion of the treaty 

 which narrowed the frontiers of France and amerced her 

 in a heavy contribution. By this step M. de Talleyrand 

 enabled himself to contribute essentially to strengthening 

 the constitutional monarchy, to which, if he had any prin- 

 ciple, he had through life preserved his attachment. Had 

 he been a party to the treaty, he must have shared with the 

 elder branch of the Bourbons the odium which attached to 

 all who had taken part in it ; and hence thrown the oppo- 

 sition into the hands of the enemies of the constitution. 

 By resigning office, he obtained a voice potential in the 

 deliberations of the opposition ; and no Kuirlish nobleman 

 born and bred to the profession could have discharged 

 more adroitly the functions of an opposition leader. For 

 fourteen years his talun was a place of resort for the 

 leaders of the liberal party; in society he aided it by 

 his conversational 1;ilents; in the chamber of peers he 

 lent it the weight, of his name and experience. He de- 

 fended the liberty of the press in opposition to the cen- 

 sorship; he supported trial by jury in the case of offences 

 of the press; and he protested against the interference 

 of Fiance in the internal affairs of Spain in 1823. 

 By this line of conduct he was materially instru- 

 mental in creating a liberal party within the pale of the 

 constitution; and to the existence of such a party was 

 owing in no small degree the result of the revolution of 

 1KJO, in which, though the dynasty was changed, the con- 

 stitution survived in its most important outlines. . That 

 revo'ution also placed Prince Talleyrand in a condition to 

 realise what had been one of his in I wishes at 



the outset of his political career an alliance between 

 France and Kngland as constitutional governments. To 

 accomplish this he had laboured strenuously in 1792; to 

 h tins was one, of the tirst objects he aimed at 

 i appointed mini .ter for foreign affairs under Hie con- 

 sulate: he accomplished it as representative of Louis 



M. de Talleyrand was appointed ambassador extra- 

 ordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of Great 



Britain on the 5th of September, 1830 ; and he held the 

 appointment till the 7th of January, 1835, when he was 

 succeeded by General Sebastiani. During these four years 

 M. de Talleyrand, besides obtaining the recognition of the 

 new order of things in France by the European powers, 

 procured a similar recognition of the independence of 

 Belgium, and concluded the quadruple alliance of Eng- 

 land, France, Spain, and Portugal, for the purpose of re- 

 establishing the peace of the Peninsula. 



After his return from the mission to England, M. de 

 Talleyrand retired from public life. The only occasion on 

 which he again emerged from domestic retirement was 

 when he appeared at the Acadmie des Sciences Morales 

 et Politiques, to pronounce the eloge of Count Reinhard, 

 only three months before his own death. He died on the 

 20th of May, 1838, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. 



The object of this sketch has been to present, as far as 

 the very imperfect materials which are attainable would 

 permit, a view of this very extraordinary man undis- 

 torted by any partisan feeling either with regard to his 

 person or principles. It must be admitted in favour of M. 

 de Talleyrand that he was warmly beloved by those who 

 were his intimate friends, and by all who were at any time 

 employed under him. It must also be allowed that when 

 his life is contemplated as a whole, it bears the imprint of 

 a unity of purpose animating his efforts throughout. Free- 

 dom of thought and expression, the abolition of antiquated 

 and oppressive feudal forms and the most objectionabte 

 powers of the church, the promotion of education, the 

 establishment of a national religion, and a constitutional 

 government compounded of popular representation and an 

 hereditary sovereign and aristocracy these were the ob- 

 jects he proposed for attainment when he entered the 

 arena of politics. He attempted to approach this ideal as 

 far as circumstances would admit at all periods of his long 

 career ; and he ended by being instrumental in establish- 

 ing it. No act of cruelty has been substantiated against 

 him ; and the only charges of base subserviency that ap- 

 pear to be satisfactorily proved, are his participation in the 

 attempt to extort a bribe from the American envoys, and 

 in the violation of an independent territory in the seizure 

 of the Due d'Enghien. His literary was subordinate to his 

 political character. It is difficult to say how much of the 

 writings published in his name were really his own. 

 Latterly, we are informed upon good authority, he was in 

 the habit of explaining his general views on a subject to 

 sotne one whom he employed to bring this communication 

 into shape ; and when the manuscript was presented to 

 him, he modified and retouched it. until it met his views, 

 throwing: in a good deal of that wit which gave zest to his 

 conversation. The domestic life of M. de Talleyrand has 

 not been alluded to ; for almost every statement regarding 

 it is poisoned by the small wit of the coteries of Paris. 



The report upon education of 1791 ; a report to the first 

 consul upon the best means of re-establishing the diplo- 

 matic service of France ; the essays upon colonization, and 

 the commercial relations of England and America ; and 

 the eloge of M. de Reinhard may all be regarded as his 

 own composition. The first is the most commonplace; 

 the other three are master-pieces in their different ways. 

 They bespeak an elegant and accomplished mind, a 

 shrewd insight into character and the structure of society, 

 and a felicitous and graphic power of expression. The 

 wit of M. de Talleyrand was the wit of intellect, not of 

 temperament. It was often full of meaning; always sug- 

 gestive of thought ; most frequently caustic. His reserve, 

 probably constitutional, but heightened by the circum- 

 stances of his early life, and cultivated upon principle, 

 was impenetrable. In advanced life it seemed even to 

 have affected his physical appearance. When at rest, but 

 for his glittering eye, it would have been difficult to feel 

 certain that it was not a statue that was placed before you. 

 When his sonorous voice broke upon the ear, it was like a 

 possessing spirit speaking from a graven imago. Even in 

 comparatively early life, his power of banishing all ex- 

 pression from his countenance, and the soft and heavy 

 appearance of his features was remarked us contrasting 

 startlingly with the manly energy indicated by his deep 

 powerful voice. Mirabeau in the beginning, Napoleon 

 at the close of the Revolution, threw him into the shade ; 

 but he outlasted both. The secret of his power was 

 patience and pertinacity; and his life has the appearance 

 of heing pretcrnaturally lengthened out when we recollect 



